Mixed Spring Greens

Man, what a night. How many different threads do I have that are worth talking about, to me? Four? Five?

First, and most important, it's spring. I know, you northerners (which is damn near everyone but Houston fokes, it's true) can kvetch, but it's been in the 80's here for a couple days, and tonight I intend to leave the windows open. It's spring. Primafuckingvera. The end of cabsavs and goulash and the merciless flogging of the Gourd. We're in the between period, a thing I've always loved...because of the smells.

Smells are constant. For me, tonight...it's the smell of Grandma's house and a gravel driveway under a full moon, ramshackle chicken houses, bluestem waking up. Freshness, wetness. Aliveness. Trees throwing their woody cares to the wind and getting on with the business of photosynthesis and pollen.

And here in Austin, there's an even bigger, wilder sense of waking up. Shit, Home Depot still has foxtail palms from LAST YEAR, and weird-ass citrus crosses like the Lemon Drop, a cannily named (considering) cross between the lemon and the kumquat.

I looked up at the sky tonight, as I was dragging the tubs of trash out to the curb...looking for the moon, and the comet I hear might be visible behind the Cubano's casa down the street. But even as I was sucking up the NOW (because, with kids, you'd better suck up the fucking NOW, because otherwise you'll be brainless PTA fodder by the time the little bastards get to second grade)....even as I was sucking up the NOW I was going back through my meticulously organized aisles of memories, on my belly snatching things off the lowest shelves, like you do...

The silver cattle guard at my grandmother's house, first afeard of alligators, then leaping it in the mad dash for the bus, then bemused by the drift of gravel that made it ineffective, about the time my grandmother wasted away.

Driving home from Parker and Ed/Hippie Dave/Osborn/Ryan S parties, at midnight or at 6am, past a magnolia tree. That tree only bloomed half a dozen times...

Ah, crap. Must go. The evening winds to a close. It's a good life.